Excerpts from Ted Cruz’s NRA remarks

“It seems to me that when the Constitution says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, that means the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The Constitution matters. All of the Constitution. It’s not pick and choose. It’s not take what part you like and get rid of the parts you don’t like. For some reason Obama liberals want to disregard the First Amendment and take away our right to speak and political speech. For some reason they want to disregard the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. And, for some reason the Obama liberals want to disregard the Tenth Amendment and implement Obamacare and take away our liberties. Every word of the Constitution matters. It is our fundamental protection of our liberties against the government….”

“In America, the people have the power. A month ago you had the president holding press conference after press conference after press conference and his package of legislation that would have undermined the Second Amendment looked like an unstoppable freight train. I was proud to join my friends Senator Rand Paul and Senator Mike Lee in writing a short and simple letter to Harry Reid that said we will filibuster any legislation that undermines the bill of rights and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. But what happened next was truly amazing. What happened next was each and every one of you, millions of Americans began speaking out…and what happened in this battle is that millions of men and women across the country got on the phone, got on Facebook, got on Twitter and said, ‘Leave our Constitution alone.’

“Standing in front of this ginormous American flag is the closets this lawyer will come to feeling like General Patton. But I’m looking out at an Army, and the voice of each of you is how we win. And because each of you spoke out and because millions of Americans spoke out two weeks ago, when those proposals came to a vote every amendment that would have violated our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms was voted down.

“The fight is not over. President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have come out and said they intend to come back at it…I would like to invite the Vice President to engage in an hour long conversation and debate about how we stop crime. If Vice President Biden really believes the facts are on his side and this is not an exercise in political power, I would think he would welcome the opportunity to talk about the sources of violent crime and how we can do everything we can to stop it.”